


Clean Hands and Bloodstained Fur

by WriteThroughTheNight



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Backstory, Character studies, M/M, Takes a look at everyone, Team-Centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-12
Updated: 2014-09-12
Packaged: 2018-02-17 00:58:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2291120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WriteThroughTheNight/pseuds/WriteThroughTheNight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Deputy Director Hill, I believe it's time we activate the Avengers Initiative." </p>
<p>The only sign of surprise is in her daemon. Clemen tightens his coils uneasily, before settling. </p>
<p>"Is that really wise?" Hill asks.</p>
<p>"We don't have the time to be wise."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Clean Hands and Bloodstained Fur

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Bioluminescent](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bioluminescent/gifts).



> Happy Birthday!! Or, happy birthday tomorrow, but since we'll be busy I'll post this tonight.
> 
> This fic is obviously for Bioluminescent, both as a present and as a thank you for all she does for me. Seriously, she helps me through the writing process, listens to me rant and rants back, badgers me to continue stories I don't want to- To be honest, without her I would never finish anything. But most importantly she's an awesome person and an awesome friend. 
> 
> Have a good day today! That goes for all of you.
> 
> I have no beta, so all mistakes are mine and mine alone. 
> 
> Warnings for brief mention of child abuse and one specific scene that might be triggering in regards to verbal abuse. Otherwise, enjoy!

Nick Fury doesn't need his swirling trench coat and eyepatch to send people scurrying. No, the bearded vulture on his shoulder does that well enough for him.

Hailwic watches everyone with equal disapproval, his stare generally more than enough to keep people in line. Before Tony Stark, and the Iron Man incident, Nick only met a handful of people unperturbed by Hailwic. But now... If he wasn't so sure of himself, he'd would almost say they were losing their touch. 

"Sir, what are you thinking?" Hill asks him, Clemen coiled around her throat and hissing quietly. 

Nick hesitates one last second, before turning to respond, Hailwic shifting just enough to brush a wing against the side of his head. The rush of connection solidifies his decision.

"Deputy Director Hill, I believe it's time we activate the Avengers Initiative." 

The only sign of surprise is in her daemon. Clemen tightens his coils uneasily, before settling. 

"Is that really wise?" Hill asks.

"We don't have the time to be wise." Hailwic regards her coldly, and the boomslang on Hill's shoulders hisses again. Footsteps echoing as she leaves the room, Nick allows one moment of weakness. He trails a hands over Hailwic's beak, who nips at Nick's fingers.

"We don't have time, do we?" 

Hailwic nips his fingers harder, drawing blood.

"Of course not. We never have time."

-

Natasha Romanoff cannot remember a time when she and her daemon aren't separated. They don't remember anything unless the Red Room wants them to, and evidently, her daemon isn't important. For years, until they break their brainwashing, the link between Natasha and Asya is thin and impersonal. Afterwards, it's not much more, even if Natasha can admit to drawing pleasure at the press of fur against her skin, and a solid presence at her back.

They leave the Red Room, but they don't stop killing.

Asya doesn't stay with Natasha on the job, and hardly ever off it. A daemon is distinctive, especially hers, and something you can't change. Separated as they are, Asya can be on the other side of the world while Natasha pulls triggers and wears low-cut dresses. Most people assume that her daemon is easy to conceal, and it serves her well.

Natasha- Natasha is always running. Running from employers and the Red Room and her ledger, dripping with red. Another alphabet agency has joined the hunt, no doubt out for her head. If she's not careful, they might succeed. The man with the piercing blue eyes and margay daemon is different than the others, she thinks. Perhaps it would be an honor to die by those hands.

After a particularly close call, Natasha finds Asya and idly touches her mane. Most people look at Asya and see a killer and scavenger. Natasha sees intelligent eyes and someone who knows as well as her that playing dirty keeps you alive.

"You're tired." Asya says to Natasha in Russian.

"Yes."

"Let me stay with you." Asya asks. Natasha nods.

People flinch away from the woman with the hyena daemon. They sit together in a café somewhere in Paris, and wait to die. When Natasha feels the sights of a rifle on her back, it's accompanied by relief. Asya says nothing, but leans her warm body against Natasha's leg.

Minutes later, the man with striking blue eyes and cocky smile strides into the shop. He slides into the chair across from Natasha, daemon leaping to perch on the back of another.

"We're supposed to kill you." The man tells her. He slouches back in his chair. Without ceremony his daemon slides to his lap. The wild cat's eyes never leave Asya.

"I'm aware. You've been following me since Nepal." Natasha says. The man doesn't look surprised; the daemon muffles a snort.

"We're with SHIELD. I'm Clint Barton, formerly known as Hawkeye. This is my daemon, Massima." The man-- Hawkeye-- continues. "I know what you're going through, Widow."

"You know nothing!" Asya snaps. Hawkeye doesn't flinch at being addressed by another daemon. His own, Massima, doesn't so much as twitch.

"I know that you're tired of running. I know that I'm supposed to take you out. I'm here to offer you another option." 

Natasha pointedly says nothing and levels the man with her blankest look.

"Come work for us, for SHIELD. I can promise you it's a hell of a lot better than what you're doing now." Asya tenses very slightly against her leg.

"Why?" Natasha asks.

This time, it's the daemon that answers. Wide brown eyes stare into hers, and it's surprisingly unnerving.

"Because we saw your daemon. You're both too intelligent to get caught." Massima turns her focus to Asya, who has wound tighter and tighter against Natasha's hip. "We looked at you, and knew."

The silence is heavy, but not uncomfortable. Natasha hesitates before saying lowly,

"When most people look at Asya, they see a killer."

Hawkeye meets her eyes.

"We're all killers."

Natasha and Asya find themselves joining SHIELD, and the rest is history.

-

Clio settles as a mink when they're fourteen and no one realizes she's anything more than a ferret. It's frustrating, but understandable. Phil grows up a Middle Child, and he's overlooked in the wake of his two sisters. He's top of his class, sure, but Phil Coulson is just so painfully ordinary. 

They graduate and join the army. His parents don't understand.

"Phil, listen, I know you want to help people. I know you love Captain America. But you're not cut out for this! Your daemon is a ferret for gods sake!" His older sister tells him. Phil shakes his head.

"Clio has never been a ferret." They ship out, and try not to think about their family.

Clio is like Phil, she's quiet, observant, and dismissed by everyone. They work their way up the ranks, because they've always wanted to join the Rangers, it's always been their goal. Eventually people start to notice them, the bland pair that extracts people from combat zones, and organizes what should be impossible. They get noticed and commended, and they make it into the Rangers without breaking a sweat.

It's the last stage, the separation stage, when someone doubts them.

"You aren't fit for this. I'd bet my hat you won't even make it halfway through the course." A cocky man with a German Shepard daemon tells them. He looks at Clio with contempt, and she digs her claws into Phil's shoulders. 

"You're on." Clio snaps. She doesn't usually rise to idiot's challenges, but today is special and important.

Phil doesn't comment, but he calmly and quietly separates from Clio on the first try. No one says anything after that.

They join SHIELD eventually and it suits them. They are the best, and no one even notices, until a man with light hair and a margay daemon. His name is Clint Barton and he's just been assigned to Phil's team.

"A mink? I haven't seen one in awhile." Barton says, glancing over Phil and Clio briefly. There's already respect in his eyes, there's already _understanding._

Clio's whiskers twitch, the most they'll give away. 

Clint Barton and Massima make Phil and Clio run the gauntlet of emotions over the years. Uncontrollable amusement at comm chatter, followed by irritation when the archer doesn't shut up. Crippling anger when Clint goes off mission, crippling relief when he comes back, alive and with the Black Widow in tow. The paralyzing fear comes with Clio's fur, stained red with blood not their own. For everything else, there is fondness, too much, too little, too overwhelming. 

Clint is brilliant, and he trusts Phil to have his back, so he does. They know each other's weakness and they know each other's strengths and they make a fantastic team. They make a fantastic couple too, when they pull their heads out of their respective asses.

Clint starts off an enigma, and then becomes a friend, and then becomes the only person Clio trusts to stroke a hand down her back. Clint is always so careful, gentle, and God, Phil loves him.

Loki stabs them in the heart, and Fury tells the Avengers he's dead, but after the Battle's over, Clio finds Clint and brings Masy and him to Phil. Their team is no longer just them and Natasha, but it's okay. Clio still gets called a ferret and Phil still gets called a suit, but they know they're anything but.

-

Adelaide doesn't start to talk until Tony is nearly ten, and she's settled. For awhile, the doctors Howard Stark calls in are convinced its a developmental problem in Tony, that his son has special needs. They're wrong of course, Tony's a genius and Adelaide passes all the tests they throw at her. She simply refuses to say a word.

One of the specialists thinks himself clever and remarks that maybe the daemon doesn't speak because Tony chatters enough for both of them. He's actually the closest.

When it's just the two of them, Addi is a little freer with words, and Tony knows there's nothing wrong with his daemon, so why does everyone think there is? Adelaide has nothing to say that Tony doesn't say for her and they don't worry about it. In public, most of Tony's constant monologue is to her, and he learns the silent signs of her emotions in her varied forms. When she settles as a crow, Tony is delighted because crows are some of the most intelligent birds. 

The media says that crows are a symbol of death and that it's just proof he's heir to the throne of the largest weapons manufacturer in the world. 

Part of the reason Addi doesn't talk is that they know exactly how many people will actually listen to her. 

The first time Adelaide speaks to someone who isn't Tony, they're only a little over ten, and following their father around the lab. Howard's own Osprey daemon looks on with disapproval. Tony never remembers what question he asked, but his father is drunk and it's the wrong thing, because he smashes a bottle at Tony's feet. He just manages to dance out of the way of the glass, but their father is yelling at them now and that hurts so much more.

"You have the Stark reputation to uphold, and you can't even grasp how to tie your shoes, you little idiot!" Howard snarls. Tony steps back and Howard steps forward, just a little unsteady.

Tony is shaking and completely quiet for once, and Adelaide, who has always been a silent presence on his shoulder, snaps.

"What do we have to do to make you love us?" It isn't a screech. It's a quiet question, but it takes the wind out of Howard's sails.

"Just- get out. Get away from me."

Tony complies.

Addi still isn't one for talking, she only does it when they're comfortable with whoever's in the room. She sticks with Tony even when he drinks himself into oblivion, and even when he loses track of who he sleeps with. Or who he's pretending he is that day.

In Afghanistan, Adelaide talks almost constantly.

It helps, and she flies beside him or in a compartment in the suit when he decides to be Iron Man.

Addi still doesn't say much, but she tells him all the things their father didn't. When he buries his face in her feathers she whispers _I'm proud of you_. As she picks chunks of debris out of his hair, she promises _I love you_. And, in the dark of the night, when no one's around and Tony is alone, alone, alone, she says _I'll never hurt you_.

-

Steve grows up little and sickly and small, and Muirne compensates. She tries out big forms, dangerous forms, and growls at the kids who knock Steve around, make a fool of him. A lot of people don't think Steve will survive to the age of ten, but he does, damn right he does.

But they still treat Steve like he's weak, and most daemons laugh at Muirne, so they don't get close to anyone. They don't make friends. They survive, sometimes barely, but they survive alone. 

That changes when they meet Bucky and Reynard. Slowly but surely they trust them, and slowly but surely Steve isn't so alone anymore. Muirne lets the two defend Steve sometimes, and rough houses with Reynard, who settles as a fox.

When she settles as a Golden Retriever, after Steve's mom dies, Bucky has a good laugh at it.

"Jesus, Stevie. You're just so goddamn _nice_."

Then the war happens, and Steve changes, improves, until he's fit to be Muirne's human. They fight the Nazis and in every face, Steve sees the kids who thought he was weak, worthless. He gets himself a team, Bucky covering his back like always. They're the Howling Commandos, the best of every bunch. Steve takes the time to brush Muirne's fur every night, and Reynard's too when Bucky's up to it. They might die any day, Muirne tells Reynard, so they might as well go out looking nice. 

They look put together when Bucky falls and it hurts, hurts like nothing else, Bucky's own neat hair, and Reynard's fur whipped into disarray. Muirne whimpers at Reynard's agonized howl, and slowly, mournfully, raises her own voice to go with it. It goes on forever and ever, and Steve wonders if any of this, anything at all, is even worth it. Steve can't find an answer, so he crashes the plane and he's alone again in the ice. Muirne stays with him because she always does and he wakes up in the 21st century.

Everyone watches him, ogles him. Steve's adaptable, Golden Retrievers are adaptable, but sometimes it's all too much. They withdraw, slowly and surely. Steve keeps Muirne close and tries to find his way through a new century. He's wound tighter than anything, and later Muirne will chastise him for how he acts like a wooden soldier.

(He won't have to explain how it's so much easier to be wooden, so much easier to pretend nothing hurts. He doesn't have to explain, Muirne knows.)

His new team is... Well, they're new. Muirne ignores their daemons at first, presses tight to Steve, because she is him, and he is her. She doesn't believe the lies he tells, and she holds him together through sheer force of will. 

They unclench eventually, and Murine starts to talk again. Steve lets Tony teach him about technology and Natasha spar with him. He lets Bruce show him meditation, and Clint show him shooting. Thor tells him war stories, and eventually Steve shares his own.

There is no fox, and no best friend at his back, but Steve accepts these people. And if Muirne still presses tight against him at night, well... Everything isn't perfect, but it's getting to be okay again.

-

Masy settles as a margay after Clint's parents die. They've been hiding all their lives, from their angry father and from their lost brother. Masy is Clint's only friend and he loves her, loves her more than anything. They join the circus, because Barney makes them, and they discover archery.

It's like nothing else, the twang of the string and the solid thud of an arrow hitting the target. When Clint looks at Masy, she's relaxed completely, blissed out. It's addicting, and there's no reason to stop.

The Swordsman separates them, and it's more painful than anything Clint has ever been subjected to, but life is better. They perform and they get fed consistently because of it. Masy watches from the rafters, and curls with Clint afterwards. They get used to the thinness of their bond, and they make it stronger, because Masy is still his only friend and he won't- can't lose her.

Barney betrays them eventually, and Clint and Masy tour the world, killing people for money. Masy tells him she doesn't like it, doesn't savor it, and Clint tells her he knows, he doesn't either, but it puts food in their stomachs. Sometimes that's all Clint knows how to do anymore.

They kill for SHIELD too, and it's like nothing has changed. But then they meet Agent Coulson.

Everything about him screams ordinary and helpless, paperpusher, but Masy looks at his daemon and stares.

"That's not a ferret, Clint." She whispers under her breath. "That's a mink."

Coulson and Clint make a fantastic team. Coulson, Clint, and Natasha make an even better one. 

Clint falls in love with ice blue eyes and a secret smile. He lets Phil touch Masy, and he touches Clio, and it's alright, it's okay. He trusts them with it.

On missions, the two daemons curl together, and eventually Asya does too. This is the family Clint never had, and it's perfect and everything. Then Loki arrives and turns everything blue. They fight it, but even after Nat recalibrates them, they spend the next few days squinting through a haze of control.

Clio comes to find them, and then Phil is still alive. His fingers in Masy's fur burns away the rest of Loki, and Clint is better, so much better with Phil by his side. Despite the alarms going off, he slides into the hospital bed next to Phil, and sleeps for the first time in weeks. Coulson scratches fingers through his hair, and Masy purrs when Clio does something similar. It takes a while to recover, sure, but Phil is there, every step of the way. They're still adrift at sea, but now they have a navigator and a compass. No matter how lost they get, Phil and Clio will still bring them home.

The new team isn't too bad either, Clint admits to himself later. Stark's chattering about something, trying to cover up the embarrassment of six mint trading cards, and Captain America is shyly signing them. Banner is reading Phil's chart, and Natasha has their back like always.

This is a start, of what, Clint isn't sure, but a start nonetheless.

-

For a Komodo Dragon, Isidore generally stays calm. In fact, out of the two of them, Bruce has been the one to cause most of the Other Guy episodes.

But still, they're careful. Isidore keeps his distance from other daemons to be safe. After Harlem they move around a lot anyway, slipping in and out of third-world countries. It's easy to be alone. 

Then the Battle of New York happens. 

Afterwards Bruce is trying not to face plant into his schwarma when he realizes Isidore isn't by his side. There's no alarm coming through their bond, however, instead it's a level of contentment Bruce hasn't felt since before.

He remembers Betty's parakeet daemon with an ache in chest.

Tony's stream of chatter cuts off with cursing.

"Fuck- Addi stop trying to fly. No- stop. I have a concussion you know." He sounds both exasperated and fond.

The daemon's silence is loud from under the table.

A thud shakes their plates, and with a click of a beak, Tony yelps. Bruce doesn't suppress the urge to look.

Adelaide appears to be seated on Isidore's head, and the larger daemon isn't concerned. Isidore turns, tail narrowly missing Agent Romanoff's Asya and Agent Barton's Massima. The hyena acts as if she's uninterested in the proceedings, but she doesn't move from her position nearly on top of the margay. Despite himself, Bruce is curious about what caused each daemon to settle in its distinctive form, and resolves to ask someday.

It's terrifying, that he's already thinking about somedays. 

By now, everyone watches under the table with varying degrees of interest. Thor looks wistful at his lack of a daemon, and there are still very clear divides, with Steve's golden retriever laying stationary and alone at the Captain's feet. But Bruce looks under the table, at the hodgepodge of daemons, and thinks it looks like a beginning.

It doesn't change, even when Coulson comes back to life, and his daemon joins the mix. After a battle, or during a team movie night, their daemons- for lack of a better word- cuddle. If anything, they befriend each other before their humans manage. It's refreshing.

Isidore will tell him quietly that he's missed this contact, and Bruce will scratch his side and whisper sorry. With his team, Bruce is no less than human, and he has a family again.

It's a marvelous thing. 

-

Thor does not have a daemon. It earn him odd looks on the streets of Midgard, but he does not have one.

He was not sure what to think of this at first. The concept of having a piece of your soul, walking vulnerable, seemed a defect. A weakness.

But then, he sees the way the creatures talk and advise their humans. Sees the way that these daemons act as the conscience that people desperately need.

Thor is torn on idea of daemons but it does not matter, because he still does not have one.

They save the world, him and this odd jumble of Midgardians. After the battle, he watches as the manifestations of their souls bond. He watches as they all become friends, Shield Brothers.

Thor does not have a daemon. He is not sure whether they are a weakness or a gift. But Thor knows he is jealous.


End file.
